Critical Essay by Budd Schulberg

The military victory against the world's most efficient anti-Semites has been won. And yet millions of Americans who take their democracy seriously are asking themselves whether the war which was won on the Rhine and the Elbe will be lost on the Mississippi and the Hudson.

It is this vital question which Laura Z. Hobson tackles with great clarity and missionary persuasiveness in this slick, readable and valuable novel on anti-Semitism [Gentleman's Agreement]….

This decisive theme—in the knowledge of this reviewer—has never been developed in American fiction before. For rushing in where more gifted novelists have feared or neglected to tread, Mrs. Hobson deserves whatever prizes a push-me-pull-you democracy can bestow on one of its more responsible and aroused citizens….